


Love (In Freefall)

by poetatertot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, M/M, Near Death Experiences, You know the scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 08:38:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15360546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetatertot/pseuds/poetatertot
Summary: Shiro is a deadweight in one hand, body sagging with the planet’s impending gravity, his face slack in its light. He is gone, lost to a void Keith doesn’t know, and there’s only one of them left to take care of this mess.The sky is falling, and Keith doesn’t know if he’ll be able to save them both.





	Love (In Freefall)

 

Everything shines brightest at the edge of the universe. The stars glisten like wet droplets suspended over black nothingness, their prismatic light splintering in Keith’s vision; he shakes his head, turning this way and that, and watches them blur into spearheads of blue-white-gold-red that swim like fish through the dark.

The Red Lion careens through space towards a satellite station. Light from the nearby planet burns his retinas, filling the Lion’s cockpit with a brilliance that contrasts the widening, black hole in Keith’s chest.

Something is very, very wrong.

He’s known it for a while. How could he not, when the tiny mannerisms of the man he loves—tiny touches, the bright light of his eyes even in absence of a smile—have all faded into nothing? They aren’t the touchiest or most open of couples by a long shot, but the rift between him and Shiro feels wider than the universe itself.

Shiro is not who he used to be. Wild movements, frantic thoughts, the sudden collapse of his words mid-sentence—the slow degradation of Shiro’s being has only sped up in Keith’s absence. He’s left for two years to right the universe and returned to his first love splintered into pieces.

_Shiro isn’t Shiro anymore_ , Hunk says. _There’s something wrong with him._ Keith wants to deny it, but how can he? Drawing a blade on a friend, tearing away in a ship with the Galran prince thrown over his shoulder—all are things Shiro would have died before doing, back when things were still right. He was the beacon in the night, the strong hand on a shoulder to lean on when everything inside became too much, but all he knows how to do now is run away without a word.

_Let me help you_ , he wants to say. _Tell me how I can help you. I_ love you.

But the Shiro of now turns away and walks into darkness without looking back.

 

Their fight on the bridge will haunt his dreams forever. The light in Shiro’s eyes is the stuff of nightmares, a purple gleam Keith has come to associate with whispering shadows and the eyes of the undying. Shiro’s movements are terse, violent; every punch and slash funnels an alien aggression Keith has only seen focused on enemy soldiers.

This is no playfight. Shiro aims to kill.

The blow to his chin knocks the fear right out of his bones. Keith grits his teeth as pain explodes through his lower jaw, pressing his teeth up into his skull hard enough to ache. He imagines his teeth shattering under the force of the blow and splintering right out of his skull.

His helmet falls somewhere—his hair tumbles into his eyes, free and unkempt with sweat. Keith parts his lips and chokes on his own saliva, blood oozing on his tongue. He can hardly breathe. He can’t stay ahead.

_“Shiro_ ,” he wheezes. His voice burns in his throat. The blood behind his lips pulses out in time with his too-fast heartbeat. Everything hurts. “ _I know you’re in there._ ”    

The station falls to pieces around them. Countless pods crack and roll from their seals, whole chunks ripped apart by the force of Shiro’s arm. Keith dodges and dodges but it isn’t enough. Soon, there won’t be anywhere left to run. Soon, it will only be him and the man he knew— _knows is in there, deep inside the flesh_ — and thousands of miles of open space.

He doesn’t try to fight. He can hear Shiro above him, ragged, deep breathing so familiar, and hears the soft thrum of his blade coming to light. He knows what is going to happen next.

_You’re in there,_ Keith wants to scream. His heart pulses, a frantic light against the oncoming darkness, a star burning bright before its impending implosion. _I know you’re in there. Listen to me._

Their eyes meet across two blades. Keith sees his reflection, ragged and pitiful, inside the black of Shiro’s pupils. There’s no light there for him to follow. Still, he has to try.

Love feels strange on Keith’s lips. It tears its way out of his body like a hot knife, wrenching free from his throat as if it wants to strangle. Hot tears burn on his eyelashes, streaming down the filth of his cheeks.

Keith stares up into the eyes of the only man he’s ever known so well, and prays for him to hear him.

_I love you._

It hurts. There’s a flicker somewhere deep—shrapnel of the man Keith knows, fragments of that warmth that used to blanket him inside and out—but it’s extinguished before he can draw another breath. The darkness presses in on all sides, clamoring to smother him alive, chewing his flesh from bone with ragged, gnawing teeth.

_Give up_ , Shiro snarls. Spittle flies free from his mouth. _Just give up, already._

The others have died. The others are gone. Shiro’s lips shape around blasphemy, whispering words that Keith would rather roll over and die than hear. He can’t believe him, can’t believe that all they’ve ever worked for is lost—

Can’t believe that Shiro is _gone_ —

_I won’t give up on you._

Survival instinct bursts from locked muscles. Keith is moving with a strength he doesn’t know, seeing the world slow down into impossible milliseconds. The planet’s light casts Shiro into shadow, sweat flies from his temples in minuscule increments, Keith can _see the hairs on his head moving in the atmosphere—_

He slices forward. One single blow, and Shiro’s arm rattles away on the platform.

Shiro stumbles back, legs wobbling. The open, gleaming stump of his arm glows an impossible violet, bright as his eyes, and Keith swallows the bitterness curling in his throat. There is no light in Shiro, not now, but there’s _something—_

The world fragments to pieces around them. They run, they fall. Stones larger than Keith’s whole body rip apart their fragile moment, throwing them into freefall towards the planet. Keith moves again without thinking, without knowing, and its all he can do to hold onto Shiro.

The pain is immediate. He is becoming something more than human—perhaps he always was—but it isn’t enough to cushion the agony of his shoulder threatening to pull out of the socket. Shiro is a deadweight in one hand, body sagging with the planet’s impending gravity, his face slack in its light. He is gone, lost to a void Keith doesn’t know, and there’s only one of them left to take care of this mess.

The sky is falling, and Keith doesn’t know if he’ll be able to save them both.

_I won’t leave without you_ , he told Shiro. He meant it. The idea of letting go, using the last shreds of his energy to save himself, repulses Keith so deeply that his insides recoil from his bones. He can’t. He _won’t_. He has to save Shiro too, or he can never go back. He’d never be able to live with himself.

Life is so cruel. He’s gone in circles for years, chasing Shiro’s shadow to the stars and back, and now it all dwindles to the single point of their linked hands. He slaved for searching for months, spent years toiling in the depths of the universe, and for _what?_

_We’re going to die,_ Keith thinks. The tears he lost on the platform come back tenfold, blinding him in his agony. _All this, and we’re going to die._

It isn’t fair. They haven’t had their time together yet, _properly_ , beyond the Garrison and Voltron and everything that’s tried to rip them from each other’s arms the way they were meant to be. The promises Shiro made in the dark, hands on his shoulders under a desert sunset, warm eyes glowing with a light that filled Keith like molten gold—

It’s all going to be gone in the blink of an eye. It isn’t _fair._

When the blade finally breaks free, Keith doesn’t fight to hold on. The handle flies free from his sweaty palm and spins away into the ether, becoming one with the glittering stars. He doesn’t look to see where it falls.

The planet’s surface is so bright. They plunge in freefall, hair whipping wildly around bare cheeks, and Keith stares into the burning brilliance of it. Shiro’s face seems so serene in its light, finally resting somewhere Keith will soon follow. He’s so beautiful, achingly so. He’s finally at peace.

_Shiro._

The weight in Keith’s bones lifts away. His heart slows.

If this is dying, then at least they’ll be together.

 

 

There is a sliver of time, thin and impossibly vivid, that Keith dreams.

_I’ve always been with you._

_I’ve never left your side._

_I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to this has already been planned, but since I want it to be canon compliant I'm gonna wait for season 7 first. Stay tuned!
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](http://poetatertot.tumblr.com/)


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